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Elston Gene Howard
New York Yankees
Catcher
Born: February 23, 1929, St. Louis, MO
Acquired: Purchased by the Yankees from the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro League, July 19, 1950
Major League Teams: New York Yankees 1955-1967; Boston Red Sox 1967-1968
Died: December 14, 1980, New York, NY (age 51)
The first African American to play for the Yankees, Elston Howard was an American League All-Star nine years in a row between 1957 and 1965. He helped the Yankees to four World Series titles in 1956, 1958, 1961 and 1962. He enjoyed a career year in 1963, hitting .287 with 28 home runs (a career high) and 85 RBIs and winning A.L. MVP honors over Al Kaline (#130) and teammate Whitey Ford (#330). He was a two-time Gold Glove winner and his fielding percentage of .993 is currently 46th all-time among catchers.
Bridging the catching gap between Yogi Berra (#470) in the 1950s and Thurman Munson in the 1970s, Howard appeared in 1,605 career games with all but 113 of those coming with the Yankees. He batted .274 over 14 big league seasons, with 167 home runs and 762 RBIs. Howard served as the Yankees first base coach between 1969 and 1979, and he added two more World Series rings to his collection in 1977 and 1978. He passed away in December 1980 from a rare heart condition.
The Yankees wore black armbands during their 1981 season to honor their former catcher and coach, and his #32 was retired by the team in 1984.
March 27, 2020 from Cincinnati, OH - Card #89
This is one of seven cards I purchased from Dean's Cards in Cincinnati (via eBay) during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic and in the midst of the first few weeks of the worldwide quarantine. (That's a sentence I can't believe I actually just wrote.)
After purchasing four commons for reasons I've explained in the posts for Cal Koonce (#34), Nate Oliver (#59), Gary Kolb (#287) and Nelson Mathews (#87), I decided I had some money left over in my eBay purchasing budget and started hunting for a few semi-star cards. This Howard card cost me $10 and I added it along with the cards of Walt Alston (#217) and Zoilo Versalles (#157).
Doug was more excited with the two boxes of 2020 Topps Gypsy Queen I bought on an impulse than he was with these cards when they arrived, but he was still glad to add a few cards to our growing set. I'm assuming these will be the last cards I purchase for our 1965 set for a little while.
The Card
This is the third and final card in the 1965 Topps set to feature the Yankees All-Star catcher, with the others being the A.L. Batting Leaders card (#1) and the World Series Game 1 card (#132) showing Howard watching Mike Shannon's (#43) home run in the 1964 World Series.
On the back of the card, reference is made to Howard's home run in Game 1 of the 1955 World Series. Howard was the starting left fielder for the Yankees in that game. With the Dodgers up 2-0 in the bottom of the second, Howard homered off Don Newcombe with Joe Collins on base to tie the game. The Yankees would go on to win Game 1, 6-5, but the Dodgers would win the series in seven games. Howard is in the harder to find 1965 Topps Transfers insert set, but he's not in the 1965 Topps Embossed insert set.
Yankees Team Set
1965 Season
1965 was Howard's final year as an All-Star and production was starting to decline for the 36-year-old. In 110 games, Howard hit .233 with 9 home runs and 45 RBIs. He started behind the plate on opening day for the Yankees and then missed all of May following elbow surgery. In total, he'd start 93 games at catcher, 3 games at first base and a game in left field. Doc Edwards (#239) got the bulk of playing time at catcher for the Yankees while Howard was out, starting 32 games.
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First Mainstream Card: 1955 Bowman #68
Topps Flagship Set Appearances (15): 1956-1968, 1973, 1975
Most Recent Mainstream Card: 2016 Diamond Kings #27
344 - Howard non-parallel baseball cards in the Beckett online database as of 4/6/20.
Sources:
Baseball Reference
Beckett Database
SABR
The Trading Card Database
In some cases, the first and last cards listed above are subjective and chosen by me if multiple cards were released within the same year. Most recent mainstream card may also be subjective and does not include extremely low serial numbered cards, buybacks or cut autograph cards.
Previous Card: #449 Mets Rookie Stars
Next Card: #451 Jim Owens - Houston Astros
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